Stella Stevens (1938-2023)

Yesterday, 17 February 2023, American actress Stella Stevens (1938) passed away from Alzheimer's disease. The comedienne starred as a voluptuous platinum blonde with a deep sultry voice in many Hollywood films of the 1960s. During the decade she was one of the most photographed women in the world. Stella Stevens was 84.


Spanish postcard by Raker, no. 1096, 1964. Stella Stevens in The Nutty Professor (Jerry Lewis, 1963).


Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: publicity still for How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life (Fielder Cook, 1968).

Appassionata Von Climax

Stella Stevens was born Estelle Caro Eggleston in Yazoo City, Mississippi, in 1938 (some sources say 1936). While attending Memphis State College, Stella became interested in acting and modelling.

While performing in a college production of 'Bus Stop', Stevens was discovered and offered a contract with 20th Century Fox. Her film debut was a bit part in the musical Say One for Me (Frank Tashlin, 1959), but her appearance in Li'l Abner (Melvin Frank, 1959) as Appassionata Von Climax is the one that got her noticed.

In 1960, she won the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year. Then her centrefold spread in Playboy magazine was one of the most popular issues.

In the following years, she co-starred with Bobby Darin in Too Late Blues (John Cassavetes, 1961), with Elvis Presley in Girls! Girls! Girls! (Norman Taurog, 1962), Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor (Jerry Lewis, 1963), and Dean Martin in the Matt Helm spy spoof The Silencers (Phil Karlson, 1966).

One of her best parts was Glenn Ford's drum-playing girlfriend in The Courtship of Eddie’s Father (Vincente Minnelli, 1962). On TV, she appeared in the series Surfside 6 (1960), Ben Casey (1961) and the soap opera General Hospital (1963).


Vintage postcard, no. 3. Photo: Laurel Goodwin, Elvis Presley and Stella Stevens in Girls! Girls! Girls! (Norman Taurog, 1962).


Spanish postcard by Postal Oscarcolor, no. 519. Photo: Elvis Presley and Stella Stevens in Girls! Girls! Girls! (Norman Taurog, 1962).

The refreshingly outspoken ex-prostitute wife

By the late 1960s, Stella Stevens' career had levelled off and she was appearing in roles based on her looks. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Despite consistently good work, Stevens never achieved the full stardom that she deserved: When she posed again for Playboy in 1968, she admitted that it was purely to get people to attend her films."

One of her best performances was opposite Jason Robards in Sam Peckinpah's The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), where she played Hildy, and showed that her talent was more than physical. In 1972 she starred in Irwin Allen's The Poseidon Adventure with Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Roddy McDowall, and Shelley Winters. Stevens played the role of Linda Rogo, the "refreshingly outspoken" ex-prostitute wife of Borgnine's character.

She also starred in Blaxploitation films like Slaughter (Jack Starrett, 1972) with Jim Brown as a black Vietnam Veteran and Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold (Charles Bail, 1975) opposite Tamara Dobson. Notable is also the comedy Nickelodeon (Peter Bogdanovich, 1976), starring Ryan O'Neal.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Stella became a fixture in movies made for television and appeared in a number of television series. Her big screen career slowed during that time, but she continued to appear in a number of straight-to-video films. Stevens produced and directed a documentary profiling a variety of women from many walks of life, entitled The American Heroine (1979). She also directed the inexpensive Canadian feature The Ranch (1989). On TV, she appeared in the critically acclaimed miniseries, In Cold Blood (Jonathan Kaplan, 1996), based on Truman Capote's book of the same name. Her television career continued into the 2000s when she appeared in an episode of the sitcom Twenty Good Years (2006).

In 1954, the 16-year-old Stella Stevens married electrician Noble Herman Stephens and the couple had a son, actor Andrew Stevens. The couple divorced in 1957 but Stella and her son retained a variation of her ex-husband's surname as their own professional surnames. Stevens died from Alzheimer's disease in Los Angeles, California in 2023, at the age of 84.


Spanish card. Photo: Paramount.


Italian postcard by Silvercart, Milano, no. 520/3.

Sources: Tony Fontana (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Tony Macklin (Bright Lights Film Journal), Wikipedia and IMDb.